Recent Innovations for Steel and Composite

Steel-Concrete Structures in Australia

Brian Uy,
Professor of Structural Engineering & Director,
Centre for Infrastructure Engineering & Safety

Abstract
Structural steel and its use in Australia can be traced back well over a century with its
use in iconic bridge projects and prolific widespread use in general. Its prolific use in
building projects has a much shorter history of half a century in multi-storey buildings
of the 1960s in Sydney when building height restrictions were lifted. This paper will
trace the advancements and achievements in structural steel in bridges and building
projects, stadia and transport infrastructure in Australia over the last century. The
development of Australian Standards for the use of structural steel and composite
steel-concrete structures in buildings and bridges will also be provided. This will
include a review of the current project on the Australian Bridge Design Code AS5100:
Part 6 for Steel and composite structures and Part 8 which also includes new aspects
to deal with retrofitting and strengthening to deal with the current challenges facing
the management of ageing infrastructure. The paper will also review aspects of the
new Australia/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS2327 on Composite steel-concrete
structures for buildings which incorporates the design of slabs, beams, columns and
systems as well as the mooted development of a Australia/New Zealand Standard on
Steel structures AS/NZS 4100. The paper will conclude with an analysis of the future,
including a review of existing and future building and infrastructure projects and the
use of structural steel. Future research into structural steel in Australia will also be
provided at the conclusion of this paper.

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

Introduction
Major civil engineering projects involving
structural steel include the 124 year old
rail crossing of the Hawkesbury River
north of Sydney and the 81 year old
Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Hawkesbury
River rail bridge was designed and built
by the Union Bridge Company from New
York, USA and officially opened in 1889.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge completed in
1932 was based on a general design by
the NSW Department of Public Works
but heavily based on New Yorks Hell
Gate Bridge and with detailed design by
Dorman Long and Co, Middlesborough,
UK through Sir Ralph Freeman and Sir
Douglas Fox.

Australian buildings using innovative steel construction

developed significantly after the lifting of height
restrictions in the Sydney Central Business District. This
period saw the design and building of the AMP building
in Alfred Street fronting Circular Quay. This was 45
stories in height and was Australias tallest building
when completed in 1976. Furthermore, Australias
tallest structure was the Centrepoint Tower now known
as Westfield Tower, completed in 1981 which used
AUSTEN 50 high strength weathering steel of nominal
yield stress of 350 MPa in its construction.

The advantage of the use of composite construction has

been less well detailed and probably would date back to
post second world war developments. It is assumed that
the use of composite construction techniques in Australia
may have also been used for well over a century, however
significant iconic structures that can be reported on appear
to only be approximately 50 years old, with significant
bridges and buildings in New South Wales, possibly the first
to have utilised these techniques. The Hawkesbury River
Road Bridge completed in 1977 was designed and
constructed as a steel box girder bridge with shear
connection making the concrete deck composite through
the top flange.

The NSW Government Offices completed in 1965 and

demolished in 1997 was Australias tallest skyscraper
on completion in 1965 reaching 38 levels. This building
relied on innovative methods of construction to
achieve speed of construction and employed many
composite construction methods, namely composite
beams spanning 10 metres, composite slabs utilising
metal decking. Furthermore, this building involved the
first major use of composite construction in columns,
namely encased sections.

NSW Government Offices,

1965
Demolished in 1997 was
Australias tallest skyscraper on
completion in 1965 reaching 38
levels. This building relied on
innovative methods of
construction to achieve speed of
construction and employed many
composite construction methods,
namely composite beams
spanning 10 metres, composite
slabs utilising metal decking.
Furthermore, this building
involved the first major use of
composite construction in
columns, namely encased
sections.

Tall building construction in Australia is significantly influenced by the

material and labour costs involved. Since Australia has a highly skilled
labour force in reinforced concrete construction and more importantly
steel framed construction, labour costs are becoming more significant
and thus are a primary consideration in the type of system chosen for
construction. In Australia in the past it has been shown that about 50
% of tall buildings have been constructed in reinforced concrete with
steel structures representing a 30 % share of the tall building market
with mixed systems representing the remaining 20 % (Uy, 1997). These
statistics have been contrast with a list of the tallest 100 buildings in
the world, (Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, 1996). It is also
anticipated that this figure has been further skewed toward concrete
structures over the last fifteen years as a result of the development of
high strength concrete being taken to advantage in multi-storey
building systems.

Type of
Framing
Material

100 Tallest Buildings in the

World (%)

Australian Tall
Buildings(%)

Steel

53

30

Concrete

20

50

Mixed

27

20

Total

100

100

One of the driving forces for innovation in the design and construction of tall steel
buildings has included the use of composite construction techniques. Some of the
more innovative composite construction applications have been confined to a few
iconic buildings of typically multi-storey and tall building structures. Some of these
typical innovations have included the use of high strength cold formed steel for
composite slabs. Conventional steel-concrete composite beams have also benefited
from some innovations in the use of semi-rigid joint action and pre-cambering of steel
beams in frames. The use of concrete filled steel columns has seen tremendous
innovations, particularly in the use of very thin-walled steel tubes and box columns for
the fabrication of concrete filled columns. Other more specialised innovations in
composite construction have also included the use of post-tensioned composite
trusses.
More recent projects have shown that for specialty structures such as stadia, exhibition
centres and transport infrastructure, the use of structural steel has promoted the
ability for reuse. This is seen to be a very important initiative for the future and salient
examples will be provided herein to illustrate some of the technical challenges that
need addressing in order to ensure that these are made feasible.

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

Bridges
Structural steel standards have been important in
Australia and date back to the late 19th and early 20th
century when Australia typically imported much of its
steel. The Sydney Harbour Bridge conceived in the late
1800s, constructed during the 1920s and completed in
the 1930s used steel sections imported from Dorman
Long in the United Kingdom, (Lalor, 2006). This bridge
is constantly being maintained and repaired and
currently has a structural health monitoring system to
assist in assessing damage to certain critical sections.

Bridges
One of the most significant bridges in Australia is the
Westgate Bridge over the Yarra River in Melbourne,
which links the Western Suburbs of Melbourne and
the southern parts of Victoria to its capital Melbourne.
This bridge is a steel box girder cable stayed bridge
which has a main river span of 336 m and has a total
length of more than 2500 metres. This bridge
collapsed during construction in October 1970, which
resulted in a Royal Commission. This and a number of
other notable collapses of box girder bridges in the UK
and Germany also resulted in many important rules
being developed by the Merrison Committee in the
United Kingdom. In 2006, the Victorian government
approved plans to refurbish the bridge. Some of the
significant factors included strengthening the box
girders whilst maintaining traffic flow over the entire
works period. These works were completed in June
2011 and included significant work on the box girder.
Much of the work involved the use of blind bolting
techniques to increase plate stiffener thicknesses,
thereby reducing the stress range operating in the
boxes and subsequently the fatigue life of the
structure.

A major composite bridge was built over the Georges River in Sydney in 1987.
This was a parallel bridge to the 1923 Pratt Truss steel bridge which was
completed in 1923. The new bridge consisted of eight 70 m spans involving
three steel box girders utilising composite action with the concrete deck. A
major composite-steel concrete bridge was built in Sydney in 2000 at Roberts
Road crossing the Hume Highway and linking northern and southern arterial
roads of Sydney. The superstructure of this bridge comprised four steel
trough girders supporting a concrete deck across six continuous spans ranging
from 25-40 metres. The sections adopted 350 MPa (N/mm2) steel plates with
1400 mm depth and 2250 width sections. In addition to some of the more
obvious challenges, some other engineering challenges in the bridge design
realm, will be in the area of urban design. Architects are finding increasing
involvement in the urban design of bridges. Architectural involvement then
poses unique challenges for structural engineers which need solutions to be
available. A recent bridge designed in Clifton Hill, Melbourne involved
significant architectural involvement and penetrations were required to
achieve the architectural objective.

Roberts Road, 2000

A major composite-steel concrete
bridge was built in Sydney in 2000
at Roberts Road crossing the
Hume Highway and linking
northern and southern arterial
roads of Sydney. The
superstructure of this bridge
comprised four steel trough
girders supporting a concrete
deck across six continuous spans
ranging from 25-40 metres. The
sections adopted 350 MPa
(N/mm2) steel plate with 1400
mm depth and 2250 width
sections.

Clifton Hill, 2009

Clifton Hill, Melbourne
involved significant
architectural involvement
and penetrations were
required to achieve the
architectural objective.
This structure required
significant finite element
analysis carried out to
justify the designs and this
will be a continuing trend
in future bridge designs.

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

Grosvenor Place, 1988

The innovative use of structural steel in this
building included quite a few firsts in
Australia. The building involved the use of
high strength cold formed profiled steel
sheets for the decking with a yield stress of
550 MPa (N/mm2). The beams which span
approximately 16 metres from the reinforced
concrete core to perimeter frame were
designed for serviceability as semicontinuous, with a semi-rigid joint assumed
between the beam and core. The columns in
the lower levels of the buildings are quite
unique and involve three perimeter columns
being grouped at the ground level in a single
column, with the key objective being the
savings in space made for car parking in the
basement. This involved the use of high
strength quenched and tempered structural
steel of yield stress of 690 MPa (N/mm2)
being used for encased sections in this zone.

Grosvenor Place, Sydney (Contd)

Piloti Column Encased

Heavy steel fabricated

section prior to and
following encasement
(shear studs provided
for composite action)

Forrest Plaza
The Forrest Plaza building is in the
central business district of Perth and the
building was completed in 1988. The
building was designed by structural
engineers Ove Arup and Partners and
construction was completed by builders
Multiplex, (Gillett and Watson, 1987).
The building has a total height of 110
metres over 28 storeys. This building is
unique in that it was the first steel
building built in Perth in a decade. Some
of the novel features which were used in
the design and construction of this
building included the use of concrete
filled steel box columns. Furthermore,
profiled steel sheeting fixed over two
floors was used in the construction
phase. Composite action for the slabs
and beams were used throughout the
height of the building.

Casselden Place, Melbourne

The Casselden Place building is in the
central business district of Melbourne
and the building was completed in 1992.
The building was designed by structural
engineers Connell Wagner and
construction was completed by builders
Baulderstone Hornibrook. The building
has a total height of 166 metres over 43
storeys. This building is unique in that it
was the first building in Melbourne to
utilize concrete filled steel tubes.
Concrete filled steel tubes of twin crosssections of 950 mm diameter have been
used in the upper levels and these
transition to a single 1350 mm diameter
thin-walled steel tubular column at the
lower levels. These columns were then
filled with high strength concrete of 80
MPa compressive strength, Webb and
Peyton (1990).

Central Park, Perth

The Central Park building is the tallest building in
the central business district of Perth (Figure 8)
and the building was completed in 1992. The
building was designed by structural engineers
Bruechle, Gilchrist and Evans and construction
was completed by builders Multiplex. The
building has a total height of 249 metres over 52
storeys. This building incorporates some unique
features for steel construction, which include the
use of precast concrete floor panels on steel
composite beams. The columns used in the
design and construction are also unique in that
they include fabricated cruciform high strength
steel sections utilizing 32-60 mm high strength
steel plate (fy=690 MPa) at the base of the
building, with mild steel (fy=250 MPa) at the
upper section of the building, (Structural Steel
Development Group, 1989).

Star City, 1995

The building comprised a number of
innovative composite construction and
high strength steel applications.
Firstly, in the main gaming areas of the
casino, large span composite beams of
approximately 16 metres were
designed and constructed. In the
basement levels of the building, high
strength steel fabricated sections were
used to miminise the cross-sections of
the columns. Due to constraints with
site access for craneage, the trusses
for the roofs had to be constructed
with minimal weight. This required
the design of 36 metre spanning
trusses made composite with a
topping slab and utilising high strength
structural steel for the sections. Posttensioning of the trusses was also used
to help alleviate long-term
serviceability concerns.

Latitude, 2005
The beams in the floor system
span a total of 14 metres from
core to perimeter frame and in
order to achieve this the beams
were pre-cambered by 40 mm to
overcome estimated long term
deflections of 60 mm. The
building also uses twin composite
columns on the perimeter frame,
using 508 mm diameter steel
tubes filled with 80 MPa concrete.
The building has required the
design of 7 metre deep transfer
trusses using large diameter steel
tubes filled with concrete and
large high strength steel boxes
filled with concrete.

Latitude, Sydney

One Shelley Street, 2010

The building is best known for
utilising an extremely efficient
steel diagrid perimeter structure
to eliminate the need for internal
columns and to minimise the use
of internal structural cores. The
diagrid members were formed
from 310 UC sections and welded
steel sections with 70 mm plate
thicknesses of nominal yield
stress, 450 MPa (N/mm2). The
beams typically spanned up to 14
m at 3.2 m centres and used a
610 UB made composite with a
120 mm deep composite slab.

Column Free Floor Plate

Exoskeleton

Floor and external frame integration

Perth Tower, 2012

Whilst technical challenges will
continue to be important in the
design of composite steelconcrete buildings, issues relating
to project management,
procurement and quantity
surveying may be of increasing
importance. The builders of the
recently completed Perth Tower,
the tallest tower in Perth chose to
adopt a concrete filled steel
column solution. In order to
secure this type of solution the
builder pre-ordered and stored all
steel tubes in the columns to
ensure steel cost fluctuations
were minimized and construction
costs able to be controlled.

Perth Tower, 2012

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

Stadia
Probably the best example of a
structure which has been made
demountable in Australia is the
Olympic Stadium built for the Sydney
Olympics in 2000. The structure was
designed to seat 110,000 people
during the Olympics with two large
end stands. These end stands were
then removed after the Olympics and
thereby reducing the capacity to
80,000. These end stands were then
transported to Wollongong, 80 km
south of Sydney and used in the
reconstruction of the WIN stadium. To
facilitate the concept of
deconstruction a special blind bolting
technique was utilised.

Blind bolting

Post Olympics Mode

Exhibition and Convention Centre, Sydney

The original Sydney Exhibition and Convention
Centre was completed in 1988 for the Australian
Bicentennial celebrations in the Darling Harbour
precinct, Sydney. The New South Wales
Government has chosen Lend Lease to complete
a $2.5 billion project which includes world class
hotel facilities. The $1 billion redevelopment of
the Sydney Exhibition and Convention Centre will
include over 40,000 square metres of exhibition
space, making it the largest in Australia. The
project will be completed by December 2016.
One of the significant aspects of this project
involves the reuse of the concrete plinth for the
foundations and carpark. The use of structural
steel in the redevelopment has allowed this
sustainable approach to be used for the
redevelopment of this world class facility.

Exhibition and Convention Centre, Sydney

Royal Randwick Racecourse

Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney
has recently been refurbished. The
original Queen Elizabeth II stand was
completed in 1969 and was constructed
in reinforced concrete, with the roof
being designed and constructed in posttensioned concrete. In 2011, safety
concerns regarding the roof beams
closed the stadium and this forced many
races away from one of Australias finest
horse racing venues. The stadium was
redesigned and rebuilt, using the lower
part of the concrete stadium, with the
new roof involving the use of structural
steel in a $150 million redevelopment.
The stadium was completed and opened
for use in the Autumn racing carnival in
2013.

Royal Randwick Racecourse

Royal Randwick Racecourse

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

Transport infrastructure
A significant application of transport
infrastructure which is being mooted
for reuse in Australia is the Sydney
monorail. The monorail which links
the Darling Harbour area with the
Sydney Central Business District. The
plans are to dismantle this and to
relocate to Hobart, which is the Capitol
of the Australian island state of
Tasmania, (Sydney Morning Herald,
2012).

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

AS4100-1998 Steel Structures

This Australian Standard was produced
by committee BD1, (Standards Australia,
1998). This Australian Standard is a
primary reference standard for the
Building Code of Australia and deals with
the design of bare steel structures. The
standard was firstly released in 1990 in
limit states format, (Standards Australia,
1990). One of the major innovations in
this standard is the ability to allow the
use of advanced analysis. The standard
limits the yield stress of the material to
450 MPa (N/mm2); however a new
amendment was released in 2012 to
increase the yield stress to 690 MPa
(N/mm2), (Standards Australia, 2012).

AS2327.1-2003
Composite structures: simply supported beams
The development of an Australian Standard in
limits states form resulted in the standard
AS2327.1 which was first released in 1996 and
further amendments were produced for a further
revision in 2003, Standards Australia, (1996 and
2003). The Australian Standard deals with the
design of simply supported composite-steel
concrete beams. The major innovations in this
standard are the ability to allow the use of partial
shear connection. The standard also requires
designers to pay close attention to the various
stages of loading, namely construction, service
and ultimate loading stages. The document does
not cover continuous or semi-continuous beam
behaviour and currently does not allow for the
use of precast or hollowcore slabs to be made
composite with steel beams. Designers wanting
to take advantage of continuity have often availed
themselves of European Standards, (British
Standards Institution, (1994)). Further progress
over the next few years should see progress on
this new standard which is ongoing in the AS/NZS
2327 project, (Standards Australia, 2014a).

AS5100.6-2004 Bridge design,

Part 6 Steel and composite construction
It has been suggested that the design of composite columns may be
satisfactory using the existing steel and concrete standards,
Standards Australia (1998) and Standards Australia (2001), however
this has some serious drawbacks. The benefits of this type of
column are through savings made during the construction phase
and thus these need to be considered. The Australian steel
standard allows one to use a rational local buckling method to
determine the local buckling coefficient however and this is useful.
However the concrete standard will not allow for confinement if it
is required to be taken into account for large plate thicknesses. The
deficiencies of these codes have been resolved in the AS5100
Bridge design series which was produced by committee BD90 which
was a partnership between Standards Australia, the Australasian
Railway Association and AUSTROADS. The Standard deals with the
design of members in steel and composite construction (Standards
Australia, 2004). The standard draws heavily on the Australian
Standards, AS4100-1998 and AS2327.1-2003 (Standards Australia,
1998 and Standards Australia, 2003) for beam and column design.
The standard is also however also able to deal with composite
construction members which may prove to be a forerunner to the
development of a standard for composite columns produced by
BD32 for buildings. This standard is currently being revised and in
particular will take into account the changes in steel and concrete
strengths that AS4100 and AS3600 have respectively proposed,
(Standards Australia 2014b).

Reduction factor for the use of high strength steel

Manufacturing tolerances used for capacity

reduction factor calibration

Capacity factor versus reliability index for compact

sections using products complying with
manufacturing tolerances given in (a) EN 10034/KS D
3502 (b) JIS G 3192/JIS A 5526

Capacity factor versus reliability index for compact

sections using products complying with
manufacturing tolerances given in (c) ASTM A
6/A6M (d) AS 5100.6

AS5100 Part 8: Rehabilitation and strengthening of

bridges
In addition to revisions of the
existing steel and composite
bridges standard a new
standard dealing with
rehabilitation and
strengthening of existing
bridges is also being prepared.
Some of the salient features
for the steel and composite
parts include the use of posttensioning and the use of postinstalled anchors, (Standards
Australia, 2014c).

Structure

Introduction
Bridges
Buildings
Stadia and special structures
Transport infrastructure
Australian standards
Further research
Conclusions
Acknowledgements

Deconstructability
Following on from recent practical examples, such as the
deconstruction of the end stands of the Sydney Olympic
Stadium, recent research has been carried out on
deconstruction of steel and steel-concrete composite beam
systems. Initial research has illustrated that for both
stiffness and strength purposes, bolted shear connectors
can provide the same or improved performance for
composite beam behaviour when compared with headed
shear studs. The following figures show the type of bolted
shear connectors and how they have been shown to allow
demountability in composite beams, (Mirza et al, 2010and
Pathirana et al, 2012).

Deconstructability

New materials
Recent trends in Australian
Building Construction have
been calling for the use of
higher strength steel and
concrete with reduced
amounts of Ordinary Portland
Cement (OPC), (Green Building
Council, 2009, 2010a and
2010b). Recent research into
column systems which use
both high strength steel and
reduced amounts of OPC have
been recently carried out,
(Khan et al. 2013).

Schematic of Kowari Strain Scanner at

ANSTO, Sydney

Schematic of Kowari Strain Scanner at ANSTO,

Sydney

Through thickness longitudinal residual stress

distribution
Longitudional residual stress [MPa]

600

500
4 mm

400

1 mm
300

2.5 mm

200
100
0
0

10

15

20

-100
-200
-300

Distance from the weld centre line [mm]

25

30

Representative stress-strain diagrams for

concrete and steel

Ratio of Column/Cylinder concrete strength

Ratio of column/cylinder concrete strength

1.80
1.60
1.40
1.20
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
10

15

20

25
b/t

30

35

Conclusions
This paper has introduced the history of steel and composite steelconcrete construction from the perspective of applications in Australia
over more than a century. Much of the innovation in these bridges,
buildings, stadia and other structures has driven the research efforts in
these areas in Australia. However, more recently, the research has
become more pro-active and solutions for industry have had some of
their fundamentals founded in the research that has been conducted
in Australia. A summary of design approaches by way of Australian
Standards from an Australian design perspective has been given.
Much of the research conducted in Australia has been underpinning
the applications and it is pertinent that Australian Standards need to
be properly developed to support the applications more pro-actively.
Finally this paper has identified some of the new areas of research that
have eventuated due to sustainability principles. This is a new and
novel method for research in structural engineering and will continue
to grow in scope in the coming years.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank all the students, staff
and collaborators at the University of Western Sydney
and the University of New South Wales for their work in
some of the elements presented in this paper.
Furthermore, a special mention to Drs Hicks and Kang
from Heavy Engineering Research Australia, New
Zealand and University of Western Sydney respectively
for the work that has been carried out to develop new
calibration factors for steel beams in Australia.

Questions ?